Age differences in picture memory of scenic photographs will be examined by means of the retrieval cuing method (Tulving and Watkins, 1975) as adapted to free-choice recognition (Bartlett and Till, 1978). Preliminary data suggest that the pattern of age-related differences depends upon the nature of the recognition test as well as the nature of the encoding task at input. When the test requires perception of resemblance, i.e., recognition of previously presented pictures as well as similar pictures from the same scenes as input pictures, a "processing-deficit" pattern (Eysenck, 1974) is observed. Age-related differences are larger after a "deeper" verbalization task at input than after a more "shallow" visualization task at input. However, when the test requires "perception of differences", i.e., recognition of previously presented pictures and rejection of highly similar pictures, age-related differences are as large after visualization as after verbalization at input. These results suggest that older subjects suffer from processing deficits at both deep (verbal/categorical) and shallow (visual) levels of processing. The present experiment has three goals. First, it will provide a more stringent test for the assumption that the perception of resemblance task involves verbal/categorical information while the perception of difference task does not. Second, it will examine the possibility that the deep processing deficit in the elderly can be removed in conditions where the quality of verbal categorization is controlled by the experimenter. Finally, it will provide clear evidence for or against a shallow processing deficit which is unrelated to verbal categorization. Age differences in recognition will be compared in the condition in which subjects provide verbal descriptions at input and that in which the experimenter provides such descriptions. Furthermore, when the experimenter provides descrptions, they will be worded so as to be appropriate for the input items as well as their similar "mates", or for actual input items only. Predictions are that: a) age-related differences in the perception of resemblance task will be reduced or eliminated when verbalizations are supplied by the experimenter, and b) age-related differences in the perception of differences task will be unaffected by the nature of verbal coding at input.